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This article is adapted from Psychology Today. Author: Neel Burton, MD.
I am extremely sensitive to noise: I always carry earplugs and fantasize about living in a forest. Is it my own problem or the world's? I am not alone in my aversion to noise. Kant hated noise, as did Proust, Kafka, Darwin, and even Wagner. Kant fled his home because of a crowing rooster, and Proust even boarded his bedroom with cork. Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus isolated themselves in large private parks, only needing to deal with the baby-like squeals of hedgehogs and perhaps the screech of foxes.
I find the sounds of nature always easier to tolerate: I once visited the Copenhagen Zoo-the only place open on a Monday-and noticed the most disturbing noises came from human children. Little children are always screaming and crying because they haven't learned to read yet. I would do the same without books.
Schopenhauer on Noise
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) wrote an essay titled "On Noise," in which he linked anosmia to intelligence and creativity:
Of course, many people, even a great many people, will smile at my predicament because they are insensitive to noise; however, it is precisely these people who are...
Arguments, ideas, poetry, or art-in short, they are insensitive to any form of intellectual impression: this fact should be attributed to the coarse quality and intense texture of their brain tissue.
Schopenhauer harshly criticized the cracking of whips in narrow, echoing streets (equivalent to the roar of 19th-century motorcycles): "The banging, the barking of dogs, and the screaming of children are disgusting; but only the cracking of whips is the real killer of thought." For him, the cracking of whips was more unbearable because it was not only unnecessary, but worse than unnecessary-it was useless.
Not all sounds are noise. I enjoy certain natural sounds, like birdsong, the babbling of a brook, and the lapping of waves; but I dislike, for example, the hum of an air conditioner (unless it's extremely hot outside), children crying, or people shouting or talking without saying anything useful or interesting. If I consider something important and meaningful, its sound is unlikely to be noise; conversely, if I consider it ugly, meaningless, or destructive, then it is noise. In short, noise is what I don't think is worth listening to, something that ultimately distracts rather than focuses or conserves my energy.
Genius and Creativity
For Schopenhauer, genius is precisely this: the ability to concentrate the mind on a single point and object. However, once this concentrated mind is interrupted, distracted, or scattered, it is no better than an ordinary mind. Schopenhauer said it's like a large diamond, which loses most of its value if it breaks; or like an army, which loses most of its strength if it is scattered.
This is not merely a question of genius, but also of happiness, for, as every creative person knows, there is no greater happiness than when the mind is at play. Aristotle famously conceived of God, the conventional source of all reason, as a thought that joyfully turns to itself. In contrast, those who are too afraid to put two things together, or are unable to, use noise to help occupy and numb their minds.
Was Schopenhauer's link to aphonia to intelligence and creativity far-fetched? In recent years, researchers at Northwestern University have found that real-world creativity may be linked to a reduced ability to filter out "irrelevant" sensory information. "Leaking" sensory gating may help our brains integrate ideas outside our immediate focus, thus fostering association and creative thinking. But if these extraneous ideas are noise, it can also paralyze us. A genius's mind is like a high-compression engine; if driven by low-octane gasoline-nonsense-it will be damaged. Even if Schopenhauer may have exaggerated his argument, he does seem to have found something.
Note: This article is reprinted from 21dB Acoustics.